wound leakage? help

[avilax777]

I am about 11 days post last night my bandage started to get full of liquid and then started to leak.  also 3 days post op i have to go see dr Pritchett to have it changed but now I am back in Los Angeles and was wondering what others have done.  Can I just go to a doctor and have it changed?

My recovery has been good been able to walk up to 3/4 of mile at one shot and then walk more though out the day and do my post op exercises.  I dont know if this is related to my activity level.

Just wanted to know what others experience has been.

thanks
avi
ps i  can post a pic but dont know if its permitted its a little graphic

[jimbone]

Avi-

Is the dressing the "waterproof" one?  Have you been taking showers?  Is the dressing filled with water from the showers or leakage from the incision?  If it isn't from the incision there is little to nothing to worry about.  You need to remove the dressing and just keep replacing it with dry gauze between showers.  If it's from the incision you need to contact the office and get it sorted out.  I skipped showers for 2 weeks and opted for sponge/towel baths until having the dressing removed for just this reason and not having help to replace the dressing between showers.  Waited both times until the day of 2 week checkup to take a shower, let it get soaked and have the office remove it.  since it's intended to be waterproof [but didn't function as such that well for me] it will hold water from a shower like a water balloon.  Call the office and get instructions from Susan- they usually provide this info in the take home instructions.  Barring incision leakage this is not a problem.  Skipping showers sucked but was more manageable than expected- could actually stay clean with the towel baths but man did that first shower feel good.

[avilax777]

jim thanks for the response. Its not from water.  Dr Prtichetts office has been amazing in their response, Dr pritchett said he has seen it before an nothing to worry about.   Yesterday I went to my general doctor to have the bandage removed it was soaked with a mix of colored liquid and blood.  The doctor said it didnt look infected it was just my bodies way of taking everything out.   He put a gauze on it which ended up being soaked and leaking on my pants two hours later.  I then had my dad put a better bandage on it which held up.

My main question for this post was to know if anyone else has experienced this much discharge.  Because though reading all the posts here and looking online I did not see much information or hippies posting about this so I was curious what it was and if others have had that much.

[hernanu]

I had a drain put in from my first surgery. I wasn't able to have the miracle "you don't have to change the bandage for a long time" bandage that I had on the second surgery.

My take on it is that my first hip was more complex. I had to change the bandage daily, and had a separate area for my drain. Not a big problem and it healed quickly once the bandage was no longer needed. Not the same as you, but I did need some directed drainage.

Sounds like you've got some good discussion with Dr. Pritchett and have had another doctor look at it. Good work on getting it looked at when you needed to. You are your own best advocate.

The second surgery didn't have as much discharge, so I was able to use the silver bandage, which was a dream.

[avilax777]

hernanu thanks for the response glad you recovered well, that would be difficult to have what you had.  I am now contributing it to doing the exercises and my activity level.    I was looking for an answer so that I could modify it so i played around with things. Yesterday i was active but not as much as usual and did my post op exercises the enclosed pic was what it looked like at the end of the day.  Mind you this is 2 weeks after surgery.  Today I did not do my exercises and i also walked less and so far the new bandage shows minimal discharge.  What surprised me is that there was so little information about this online.  So I would like my experience to help people since there is not much information on this online.